This morning I attended a press conference hosted by FNB on a World Wide Worx study on Mobile Consumer and Mobile Internet use here in South Africa. The study was based on urban and rural users over the age of 16.

I don’t feel so bad anymore bringing out my Nokia between all the shiny new Blackberries. South Africa seems to be the only country in the world where Blackberry use is growing. The parent company, Research in Motion, is in serious trouble elsewhere. According to RIM, SA has the highest penetration of Blackberry messenger: 98% of Blackberry users in South Africa use the Blackberry messenger service.

Buying airtime still the dominant form of mobile banking: 74% of users use it for this purpose, 15% use mobile banking to pay accounts

This is the main thing I use mobile banking for (and checking balances, of course). I’m sure I’m going to be trying account payments in the future….